Keep On Keeping On

My dad used to say this a lot: "Keep on keeping on." I remember him saying this a lot after he would pick me up from football practice and I would complain how hot it was or how tired I was or how I don't think I could do it another day. He'd say it a lot especially in the summers when we would work out together and I was just exhausted and didn't feel like lifting anymore. Summers were the worst. All the working, all the running and for what? There was no immediate benefit to my efforts. No game that week, no goal to hit, nothing to really shoot for other than just getting better. -Keep on keeping on, he would say.

It would take me a while to get the full breadth of what Pops was saying. Keep doing what you're doing. When there's no immediate reward, when there's no finish line in sight and even more, when you know there's no guarantee of a reward at the end of the race. Keep doing the right thing. I learned this last year when God was really dealing with me in the area of being a man of character. One day I remember him very clearly putting this in my heart -would you still do whatever you're doing if there was no reward? Would you still chase me, would you still be faithful and diligent and obedient if there was no reward to it? Would you still do the right thing if no one ever found out you were doing the right thing? What if no one even cared about your character and integrity? That's integrity. Doing the right thing when there is no promise of a reward. No guarantee of a shiny medal. No accolades, no recognition. Doing the right thing because it's the right thing to do is the definition of character and integrity.

I feel in my heart that that's 2012 for me. If 2011 was a trying year, a strengthening year, 2012 will be a building year. This will be a year to lay the foundation down for a lot of what God has called me to and a lot of what he has for me. This is the year to put some action behind my dreams and desires. While it is absolutely true that God is faithful to his word and he gives us the desires of our hearts, I also know that sometimes that is presented as God giving us the opportunity to chase down our dreams and desires. That's 2012 for me. I never make resolutions because maybe I'm a little jaded, but I think if you're not already pursuing a goal, a simple change in the calendar won't flip some magic switch that will all of a sudden give you drive and discipline to pursue those. But I do set goals. And maybe because I'm a bit of a perfectionist, I actually get pretty angry with myself if I don't reach those. Last year I reached all but one of my financial goals, and I was pretty upset about that one I missed (I didn't buy a motorcycle like I wanted to).

I think most of us start every year with a bit of expectancy and anticipation about what's to come. And at the risk of sounding inflated or hyperbolic, I really think 2012 is going to be the best year yet! Yeah 2011 was great. It was really good to me. And I'm thankful for that. But honestly, looking back, it was a bit of a trial. Crazy work hours, not seeing a lot of friends or family, not really having a home church, a non-existent dating life. Personally, it wasn't the greatest. Professionally, it was amazing! I can almost hear my dad saying that to me this year. Keep on keeping on. Keep up what you're doing and do more. Build on your successes. Stretch yourself. Challenge yourself. Do great things. Dream big dreams. Impress yourself. So, I'm excited about 2012. I don't know what exactly it holds for me. But I'm not hedging my excitement. This is going to be a great year. Professionally, personally, spiritually, this will be the best year of my life so far. And maybe there's a little bit of speaking it until I believe it and believe it until I achieve it alchemy to it, but really isn't that the key to a lot of what we do? So I encourage you--I challenge you. Take all your wins and victories from past years and add to them. Build on them. Challenge yourself. Write down your goals and chase them down. Inspire and impress yourself. Keep on keeping on.

Excellence Now

Growing up in church I got really comfortable with "church speak" or what we would jokingly call Christianeze. You'd hear pastors throw life changing terms around with reckless abandon. 

"Chase after God! "They'd say. "Fulfill your calling" was always popular. And of course, "Change the world!" was a good go-to. 

Did anybody ever stop to think what any of these really mean? Did they ever stop to think the very real implications of what following any of these Christian charges of faith would look like? Any of them. Let alone all of them. I'm not suggesting most of these godly men didn't have my best at heart. But has anyone ever really dissected what any of this looks like? What it really means to truly "chase after God" or to "fulfill your calling?" 

Growing up these were always very dramatic, sensational, emotion-laced commands. These were especially popular messages every summer at the annual Jesus camp. For all the stereotypes you can imagine, these things could actually be somewhat effective and I saw a lot of people really find their stride in God at these things. By the same token, whatever token stereotype of hyper-inflated spirituality you want to tag on these yearly pilgrimages is probably accurate too. But every summer there would be a handful of teenagers or even adults that would come back to the real world with a tangible, marked change in their lives. A few to whom "changing the world" wasn't just a cute form of hyperbole to accessorize their faith with, but a genuine newfound fervor and passion for their Savior. But for many of us, this one week Jesus acid trip was just that, one week of Nirvana on Earth where you could talk big, live right and start or end every sentence with "Amen" and "Praise God." A week where you vowed to give up any and all fleshly pursuits for the higher calling of Christ. Also for many of us, the one-week Jesus honeymoon ended all too soon. Halfway through the year we were reminded of the big changes we promised to make for the Lord and how short we were falling of that. -Where is your fire from this summer? they would ask. 

One of my favorite scenes in The Other Guys is where Mark Wahlberg gives Will Ferrell a very inspired, emotionally-charged speech about being a hero. 

-This is our moment! The city is dying for a hero! And we can be those heroes! 

Will Ferrell's response is excellent. 

-Really? A hero? What about nine million responsible citizens stepping up and doing their part? 

Cracks me up every time! 

But it relates a lot to our faith doesn't it? What does the world really need? A bunch of burnt out Ted Haggards or Benny Hinns? Where the world can't figure out if our faith is for real or if we're a blind, ignorant mob following after these celebrity pastors the way trailer parks across the South chase and profess their faith for WWE wrestlers? What would make more of a difference? Extolling your church's latest monstrosity of an auditorium or quietly living your faith without wavering or defecting? A banner rattling off how many new members you coaxed into the fold or quietly showing love to the man that has his world falling apart? Let me ask you this: which looks more like love? Is it tagging an entire group of people as lazy and stupid when their coping mechanism for this economic environment is demonstrating and picketing? Or is love coming beside them with grace, compassion and love, extending a hand saying -maybe I don't agree with everything you're saying, but I love you as a human. I love you as a child of God. Which is it?

I've been praying a lot lately about what my calling is in this season. What I should really be focused on. Admittedly, I feel as though I could use some re-focusing after this year. If I am completely honest and transparent, I would say I have not been chasing the best God has for me for a little bit now. Yes, I love the Lord, probably more now than I ever have. But the hypocrisy of the church and the bigotry of those professing the faith has definitely soured my view on "fellowship" with those who claim to be the Body. I don't have a lot of that figured out, even now. But I know this. God has the best for me. Now. Not when I'm done grappling with these issues of the faith. Not when I have all the answers. Now. Not when I feel like it. Not when I feel "worthy." Now. 

And this is my calling: to be here. Now. This is my excellence. To walk in faith, to chase after Him in the midst of the wondering and wandering. To trust and walk even when life doesn't make sense. Even when the Body hurts and disappoints. To be the Body to those that may never set foot in a multi-million dollar facility complete with lights, sounds and technology that would rival most concerts today. 

I used to believe that "walking in your faith" a lot of times meant being a Christian with a Bible Man costume buttoned and hidden under your street clothes ready to go at a moment's notice. To preach the faith from the steeples to the mountain tops. To cast out the demons of drinking, partying and overt sexuality from the world around you by casting holy stones and condescending glances at the mention of any of these vices. To be "set apart" meant to let the world know exactly how much holier you were because you didn't participate in these extracurriculars. I'm learning it is the exact opposite. I'm learning that walking in your faith involves a lot more walking and a lot less preaching. In fact, I would venture to say that walking in your faith ought to involve a lot less "set apart" and a lot more doing life together. I was talking to a friend lately that's been burned by the church more times and with more fervor than a heretic in Salem. He said to me -You know, it's sad that the world thinks Christians are full of shit, but it's even more sad that for the most part, they're right. And it resonated with me. That's exactly what the world thinks. That's exactly how they feel. If you're not familiar with Gandhi's quote by now, you should be "I like your Jesus, but your Christians are so unlike him." And sad to say, most of us cannot argue with them. It's like a psychotic relationship the church has with the world it was sent to save. For every example of holy works, feeding the poor, helping widows and disaster relief, there are just as many examples of hate, intolerance and bigotry that nullifies them. Some idiot pastor Tweeting some misogamist message, some church broadcasting and boasting how much good works are coming out of their building, some believer blindly endorsing hateful and racist politics under the banner of 'Christian values.' So yes, the world has plenty of reasons to believe the Body is a limp, useless quadriplegic with only a mouth that moves and unfortunately moves too much and all too often, in the wrong direction. 

So I don't know exactly what I'm doing in this season, if I can be completely transparent. I don't know what the balance is for me between work and life. I struggle with a lot of issues in the church. But I still know this, my Jesus loves me. He loves the world. He wants the best for me and he wants the best for them. And in this season, excellence for me is walking in that, believing that and hopefully having chances to share that with those that have been burned, isolated, ostracized, excommunicated or otherwise forgotten by the church. 

It was in one of those summer camps that I very clearly heard the Holy Spirit tell me this: You are not forgotten. You are not less-than. You are not ignored and you are not alone. I love you and I have the best for you. 

That is my message in this season. I know I'm loved and I'm not forgotten. I know my God is big and my Jesus loves me unconditionally. Unfortunately, there are literally millions of people who have seen or heard someone in the Body show them otherwise. Excellence for me is to be a quiet, understated voice that seeks out an audience and loves unconditionally. A voice that is not boastful, proud, self-seeking or arrogant. I don't have everything figured out personally or spiritually. But I don't have to know everything to know this: I am loved and I am not forgotten. The world Jesus came for is loved and not forgotten. This is excellence for me and maybe in chasing that I can find the best for my life. Maybe in chasing that I can fulfill my calling and maybe in that I can change the world.

You were created to be loved and accepted…

What's amazing about this, is that you already are…the sadness is that few of us grasp this…

Went to see Hillsong this weekend and there was a really powerful moment for me where they stopped to speak for a second and this has stuck with me since. But it’s the idea that when Christ hung on the cross, God took the most vile, most wretched, the dirtiest representation of chastisement, of evil, of sin—the cross, and made it, for all eternity, the one representation of love overcoming sin, love overcoming separation, love overcoming evil, love overcoming all. See, God hanging on the cross was no accident, it was no after-thought. It wasn’t His impulsive correction to our ‘oops’ of sin. The Bible says that He planned this from the beginning. God knew the moment He made man that man would let Him down. That man would separate himself from God and that God would have to fix it. Yet, He still created us. He still breathed into us; He still formed us in His image. Think about that for a second. How many times are we disappointed to find out that the people in our lives aren’t quite as awesome as we wanted them to be? How many times do we ‘cut people’ out of our lives for the sake of avoiding pain? And not that that’s bad; in fact, I’m a huge proponent that it’s healthy to prune your social circle from time to time. But we don’t have the foresight that God has. We don’t have the omniscience to know who will let us down and who will hold true. But God did. God does. Yet, He still chose to form us and more than that, He chose to love us. LOVE. The Creator of the universe, the very same One that holds the universe in the breadth of His hand loves us. He madly, deeply, passionately, insanely loves us. With an intensity and furor that we can’t begin to comprehend. Paul said –I wish you could know how high, how deep, how far and how wide His love is for you… unfathomable. 

So what? What’s gorgeous about the cross is that God took an ephemeral, perceived failure and made it an eternal victory. He did that. He does that. He takes your greatest failures, your biggest hang-ups and your biggest mistakes and makes them the source of your biggest strength. He takes what the enemy put in your life, or many times, what we allowed in our lives and boldly, loudly, vehemently and lovingly declares –you are not a failure! This is not your failing mark! You are not this mistake. Yes, you made a mistake, but you are not a mistake. You may have lost at this, but you are not a loser. I think, unfortunately, many times as Christ-followers we’re really good at accepting forgiveness and accepting the basic tenets of Christianity and we stop there. We think that because God gave us our ticket to heaven we’re set. But no, Jesus came to give us life. Life here, life now. Life beyond abundance. My favorite scripture in Ephesians says that God will take your biggest, baddest, wildest dreams and use that as his starting point for your life. He’ll take what you can’t even begin to imagine and that’s His floor. That’s His starting point. But many times, I think we don’t even to realize how real this love is. This love that saved us, this love that rescued us. He takes the very thing that made us feel like a failure and uses that as a catalyst to make us victors, conquerors, over-comers and all those other cute-sy scriptures we like to quote but never fully understand. 

I think if God would have us understand one thing as His people, it would be this: I love you. I accept you. I love you and I accept you. I know all, I see all, I know where you’ve failed and I know where you’ll fail. Yet I still love you. I still love you and I still accept you. Just how you are. If you never changed anything about you, I would still love you and still accept you…Yes God wants us to grow, yes, He wants us to progress, but if He didn’t love us until we made progress, then it wouldn’t be real love would it? 

I've been thinking a lot about this, and if you can punch a hole in the theory, please do. But I’m starting to believe, that most of our problems, most of our issues stem from our misunderstanding of God’s love for us. And I don’t mean logical understanding, I think a lot of us ‘get’ it. But I mean, intrinsic, deep-rooted, unshakable, understanding of His love for us. It’s a simple theory, but entertain me…if the most powerful, loving, amazing, wonderful Being in all creation—in fact, the Creator of creation, loves us and accepts us, then why do we look for it somewhere else? Because we don’t fully ‘get’ it. But we all do don’t we? We date that girl or that boy for a bit too long because somewhere, on some level we’re waiting for their approval, for their acceptance, their love, when all along our gut is screaming -RUN! She’s crazy! Why do girls have ‘daddy issues’? Because there was a man that was supposed to love and accept them, but failed at it. Why do we, as men, do stupid things to show off our moxie and our bravado in our younger years? Because we want our friends to think we’re cool right? We want to be accepted. I feel like I could write a never-ending list of these things. But it’s true. If we never learn to accept that our God, our Creator, our Redeemer loves us and accepts us, we’ll continue to look for it everywhere else. In our careers, in our cars, in our clothes, in our relationships, in our goals. Can you imagine the power, the freedom, the life we would have if we learned to walk with the understanding that the Father loves us and accepts us? What if you understood this from the beginning? Personally, I can think of a pile of mistakes I would have never chased down if I had. 

I learned that this weekend. I am not my failures. I am not my mistakes. I don’t have to redeem myself, I don’t have to prove myself and I don’t have to barter, plead or beg for love or acceptance. My Father loves me and accepts me for who I am and for what I am. Yeah, maybe it’s a bit campy and maybe even a bit of arrested personal growth. But I’m learning. I’m learning and I’m growing. And for that, I’m grateful. I’m grateful that He loves me and accepts me. I’m grateful I don’t have to seek it out, pursue it, wait for it, ask for it, or otherwise earn it. People won’t always treat you like this, but your Father does. And if you can understand that, it won’t much matter how people treat you.